


the cold, the north, the ritual

by scintillio_coll



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintillio_coll/pseuds/scintillio_coll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are already living in the world of our father’s regrets.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the cold, the north, the ritual

**Author's Note:**

> R+L=J

 

* * *

 

It is a quiet moment in the solar and she would be sad to ruin the peace, the surreal calm, but it takes much more to make her despair now. Not even the unyielding cold, dark, the firelight licking at the blood the drips from every corner. She sees it, always, in her periphery, on Jon’s hands, Osha’s, Arya seems bathed in it. On hers, always always hers.

“Rickon,” in her head she does nothing but whisper and it always takes her by surprise when the voice that sounds is as strong and steadfast as the iron in her crown.

Her brother turns to her from the book and his shaggy black shadow bares his teeth silently, as if he can smell her intentions and cruelly agrees, “You will come.”

Osha’s eyes light but she does not argue, nor Jon. It shakes her when it is Arya who objects.

“He is too young,” her gray eyes are sparked flints and Sansa thinks she sees a million faces instead of her sister’s every time the fire flares.

“Yes,” Sansa agrees, but Rickon smiles and she swears there is blood on the wolf’s

teeth. “Yes, he is young.”

 

* * *

 

The Dragon Queen sips from her goblet and shrugs her horsehide blanket higher upon her shoulders. Her hair is braided in the Dothraki style and she is dressed more in the manner of her bloodriders than the Northerns. Sansa revels in the browns and grays of her clothing. She finds herself numbed by the dramatic hues of the south after a true winter.

Daenerys' translucent hair pools in the depression of her collarbone as she leans across the arm of her chair. She brushes her fingertips along Sansa’s uncovered hand, threading their fingers together.

Her expression is sweet and her tone hushed, barely heard above the din in the Great Hall, “I think you know my wishes, Sansa.”

She wonders how Daenerys could be so foreign and familiar at the same time. What would the scuffed and scorned and oh so lonesome girls within them say if honesty, levity was allowed?

“We are to be family,” Sansa answers.

“You will keep the North, and you will keep Jon,” the queen responds as if it absolves her of what is left to say.

“But you will keep my children,” Sansa does not let herself look anywhere but into the other woman’s eyes, willing her to feel this burden.

 She simply nods and gestures beneath their feet, to the dungeons and the roots and the rotting dead, “I am doing all I can to even the scales.”

 

* * *

 

“They say you were to marry him,” Arya is accuser now. Sometimes ally, enemy, judge, and savior. Sister is most rare.

“I have been meant to marry many men,” their brother’s crown atop her head means she need explain herself to no one.

The wierwood leaves look like rust in the dim light of winter’s sunrise as they walk through the snowdrifts.

“And does your hospitality extend to all your former suitors thus?” Arya asks.

Sansa smiles although the caged child inside weeps from the weight of her own lips. “If I could,” she murmurs vaguely.

Arya hisses in approval, showing her teeth like a feral cat. Nymeria howls from deep in the keep, “Then I shall get them for you.”

Sister is most rare, but she finds her in the oddest of places.

 

* * *

  

The room feels as cavernous as the wide gulf in her gut. A candle flickers from somewhere beyond the bed but it just makes the hollows and slant of his face look like pits. There are pins in her toes; sharp prickling numbness from the cold but it’s a small, small pain.

“I would do it, instead of you. To keep such a thing from your memories, from weighing on your honor.”

The furs chaff against her knees as he shifts in the bed, pulling a pelt to cover her bare chest. “This is where I will find my honor again,” she argues, the warmth of her breath clouding and dusting and illuminated in the wane moonlight. “In my duty. Father would not forgive me otherwise.”

He clutches her to his chest and she is nothing but red hair and ribs and shallow curves while he is wrought with cords of sinew and half healed scars.

“Winter Lady,” he nips at her shoulder and says tenderly, “We are already living in the world of our father’s regrets.”

 

* * *

 

She keeps him longer than any expected, waiting for something that even she cannot define.

The Baratheon bastard the queen brought to placate Arya’s wrath has long since melted the dual blades until red waves washed clean, frozen again, shattering the rubies and burying the dust above Lady’s bones.

But one day she can wait no longer and she finally understands.

_Spring_ , she thinks.

They ride out together; the splinters of family hewn again into something stable and strong like a wierwood branch.

He is waiting, as she knew he would, bound but not gagged. And as he begs she hears not a sound save the beating of her own heart and Lady growling in her mind.

The block is cracked, aged, stained with the life’s blood of countless men and she thinks that is fitting. There will be no fanfare, just the cold and the north and the ritual her father followed.

“Do not look away,” she hears Arya whisper to Rickon.

The sword is not nearly as heavy as the crown on her head.

“In the name of my father and with the blood of the First Men, I, Sansa of House Stark, Mistress of Winterfell and Queen of the North, do sentence you to die.”

The wolves howl and the cold winds blow and she does not see Petyr Baelish’s blood on her hands. 


End file.
